When it comes to whether or not a company should rebrand, the first thing most owners or CEOs will question is the return on investment.
The truth is, developing a strong brand can often be seen as an unnecessary expense to business leaders, with their money better spent on marketing initiatives. In isolated cases, short-term marketing initiatives may be more effective than long-term branding, but nearly every high-performing company has invested heavily in its brand.
What many fail to realise is that an effective brand goes beyond a memorable logo to increase a company’s value, motivate employees, and make it easier to acquire new customers.
For that reason, a strategic rebrand can be one of the smartest investments you can make in your business. In this article, we take a look at what makes a brand valuable as well as the boost a well-executed rebrand can give to your bottom line.
What is a brand?
A brand is not just a logo with a bunch of colors floating around. It’s a clear and cohesive framework designed to inspire trust and value from customers, employees, and the marketplace.
Your brand should be an outward expression of your company’s promise. This expression comes in many different forms, including logo, messaging, strategy, communications, and in some cases, pricing.
Take Apple, for example. Apple’s brand is more than just the partially chomped Apple logo; it’s the technology, hardware, software, and apps. It even extends to include its distinct stores renowned for their beautiful displays, clean lines, and of course, The Genius Bar.
For many, this is where the promise of Apple’s brand is seen, heard, and felt.
We explore this in more detail in our article, A Brand is More Than a Logo.
What makes a brand valuable?
A common question that gets asked is, why do I need a brand? The answer comes down to value. Brand value refers to its to the consumer. It’s what makes someone choose one over the alternatives.
There are several things that valuable brands have in common. Generally, they are:
- Easily recognizable: people know who they are
- Positively perceived: they are well-regarded by consumers
- Popular: their products or services are regularly bought or used
- Loved by loyal customers: generating natural brand ambassadors
So, when should I rebrand?
When and why a business should consider rebranding comes down to what it’s trying to achieve. For most businesses, a rebrand will be required to reposition a brand in the market, launch new products and services, internationalize or simply evolve to meet new consumer expectations.
Coca-Cola is a great example of a company that continually rebrands to keep up with the times. Despite never changing their core brand pillars, they’ve updated their brand identity system 12 times in 121 years of business. It’s never a new brand, simply a new version of the same thing they’ve had since 1905.
The Coca-Cola logo has been updated 12 times in 121 years. Never new, always cleaned up to match the times.
Whatever the reason, successful rebranding will help define or refine a company’s value and promise and help it stand out amongst the competition.
How much does a rebrand cost?
Price is often the first question that gets asked when the idea of rebranding is raised. But every rebrand is different, so there is no one-quote-fits-all when it gets to the price.
Branding exercises can range from $15,000 to $350,000, with the company’s size, the industry’s challenge, and the business objectives all playing a role in the cost.
Rebranding is an investment in your company’s future. Although you may not see the spike in sales you would from a short-term marketing initiative, you’ll set yourself up for sustainable, long-term returns that will drive your business forward.
What’s the ROI of rebranding?
When you’re looking to measure the ROI of a rebrand, you must first consider the value of a strong brand. Strong brands attract more customers at a lower cost per acquisition. These customers are happy to pay more and will buy more frequently.
Branding ROI can also be demonstrated by the fact that the strongest and most relevant brands consistently outperform every market index.
Check the Metrics
When measuring the ROI of a rebrand, you also want to measure the impact.
It is important to consider sales, brand loyalty, consumer behavior, brand perception, net promoter score, and media response as valid metrics.
Brand loyalty can be easily measured. This is based on the number of repeat customers, the lifetime value of customers, and the referral rate. Conversions are also easily tracked and are something every marketer should be focused on.
Brand awareness can be measured via surveys and focus groups or by simply diving into search volume data. If you see an increase in people searching for you after the rebrand launch, the improved “top of mind” awareness proves it’s been a success.
Bringing your brand to life
While it’s not as easy to measure as a digital marketing campaign, strategic investment in your branding provides sustainable, long-term ROI for your business.
At Farinella, we’re big believers in building brands that uncover the “truthiness” of a company. Our goal is to work hand in hand with owners, CEOs, CMOs, or senior management to deliver branding that stands out, connects, and drives business.
If you’re looking to bring your brand to life, or develop a new brand altogether, talk to us today.
